Toward Her Awakening: A Novel of Kate Chopin

Kathleen Williams Renk re-imagines the life of novelist Kate Chopin. In 1850s' St. Louis, five-year-old Katy O'Flaherty's father sends her to a strict convent school to stifle her precocious nature. Thus begins the life of the girl who  becomes a progressive, feminist, "e;new woman"e; writer who shocks the world with her novel The Awakening, which Willa Cather derided as the "e;Creole Bovary. Kate O'Flaherty Chopin spent her childhood in St. Louis during the Civil War where she witnessed enslaved people sold on the courthouse steps. Raised by courageous women, including a French great-grandmother who ran trading boats on the Mississippi and who believed in justice for all, it's no surprise that Kate grew into a woman who rode bareback, smoked cigarettes, dressed audaciously, and wrote about taboo topics. In other words, she defied every expectation for women in the middle-late Victorian period. Experience the vibrant and colorful world along the Mississippi and the unique Louisiana 1800s' culture that permeates Chopin's writings and her approach to life.